May-June 2014 - Austin 3
Transcription
May-June 2014 - Austin 3
May-June 2014 Neil’s car on the Practical Classics stand at the NEC Restoration Show In this issue; Neil’s Bit. Repairing front displacers. Affordable Hydrolastic pumps. NEC Restoration Show report. Neil and family go on holiday in a 3-Litre. It’s all about the ride says Richard Althrop. Out and about. Odds and Ends. Neil’s Bit Things have been rather busy for yours truly over the last couple of months, with the announcement that my beloved car had made the final 10 for the restorer of the year competition saw some rather frantic preparation for the journey and the show itself. Then we looked at the calendar and realised the show was wedged within our pre-booked holiday! This called for some rather involved planning, more on that later in the newsletter. I am pleased to say that all went well and we made a decent display at the show, lovely to have had some club members come along to say hello, especially as some of you changed your plans to attend on Sunday to come and say hello to us. (I didn’t go myself on the Saturday) It was a privilege to be able to represent not only the cars but the club as well at such a large and prestigious event. We knew we were unlikely to win but it was great to have been a part of the competition, it was pleasing to drive the car into the hall, our car is mildly pampered but is certainly not a “trailer queen.” The Owners Club facebook page has become a busy and friendly place, rest assured it is a race free page and always will be. If you want to take a look and join in the friendly banter, here is a link. https://www.facebook.com/groups/Austin3L/ New members since our last newsletter are, Robert Smith who is from Australia David Thomson, and Shaun Greenan A warm club welcome to you all. This newsletter is rather large, many thanks to Richard Falthrop for sending in your article, much appreciated. I am so glad to have been able to help Richard with his rear suspension repairs recently, another 3-litre with no squeaks from the rear, working self levelling and a nice ride restored. Our show season is looking busy, there are a good many BMC related shows this year which I will list on the website and the facebook page. I am pleased to say my front displacer repair appears to have been successful. We are all very indebted to Jim Robertson for giving us a scrap unit to cut up, and for Ian Downes and Kevin Morton who spent a few hours and rather a lot of cutting discs cutting it open and working out how it was built and it’s operation, the repair would not have been possible without this information so many thanks guys. The unit is holding up well so far and the ride feels no different, I will keep testing it for a few weeks. I am reliably informed the pressure inside the unit rises to around 1000 psi when driven hard so it’s a big ask of any repair to cope with that sort of pressure, so far so good. See you at an event soon I hope. Happy 3-Litre-ing Kind regards Neil Repairing front Displacers I was somewhat concerned to see a front displacer leaking on my own car a few weeks before my forthcoming long journey to the NEC Restoration Show. I huge thanks to those of you who offered to lend me one of your spare ones should I become stuck, that was much appreciated and shows what sort of club members we have, you are a great bunch. Just to recap on what I think is achievable with regard to repairing these units, the three failures are; hoses split, top rubbers burst open, lower rubbers burst open. From a repair point of view, hoses are easy to replace, a burst lower end is beyond hope of repair currently, a burst top end I felt could be repaired and I have managed to do just that. Some of the problem with the top end is the rubber thickness is quite thin, once this thin film perishes and splits open water gets in and attacks the top of the valve area, this of course causes more deterioration. I thought if I could get a liquid rubber that would bond to metal and existing rubber, and cope with some flexing and contain the 250 psi of fluid pressure within the unit it may be possible to repair one. I have two spare units which are both split and leaking from the top so I decided to use these as the basis for my trials. As shown in the picture below the rubber in the top centre is rather perished and split, and this area is where the Hydrolastic fluid was weeping from. The first step was to remove all the split and perished rubber and see what we had beneath the rubber, the picture below shows the start of this process. The rusty cone in the centre is the top of the valve assembly. The next part of the process involves removing all traces of loose rubber and to also remove all traces of rust on the metal areas. The rubber has to be cleaned, “keyed” and have a special primer applied to allow the liquid rubber to bond to it. The metal areas also have to be cleaned of rust and have the same treatment but the primer is of a different type. The primers come in quite small quantities and are quite expensive; they have a short shelf life too as does the liquid rubber component. We do know these units were made in a mould and the upper facing area about to be repaired is shaped, this process is not able to be repeated as a repair so a different approach is needed. This involves using the top area effectively as a cup to contain the rubber; this means the repair will be flat as opposed to the convex shape it was made with. I do not consider this an issue, this area of the displacer has very little movement, the valve unit is rolled into the body and therefore cannot move so therefore a relatively firm rubber can be used. I did a lot of research into the types of rubber available and their properties, coupled with what they were capable of in terms of pressure capacity and how much of a bond they can achieve to metal and existing rubber components and what primers were required. The rubber I used is an isocyanide two pack liquid compound. The picture below shows the de-rusted displacer about to be cleaned and have its components primed. Now for the exiting bit! The liquid rubber elements are thoroughly mixed and poured in to the top of the displacers. Once in this state the compound becomes very thick after about 20 minutes, full curing in reasonable temperatures takes up to 72 hours. After curing the next areas to consider are static testing followed by road testing. For static testing I first had to build a jig to hold the units in to allow them to be pressurised. This was a relatively simple task to do, the picture below shows the testing jig with one of the repaired displacers being pressure tested. I used the A A Mason pump for pressurising them as I figured the pressure gauge on this new pump would be very accurate. Both the units I have repaired have been tested to 250psi in this way and are holding pressure. The final stage is of course road testing, I have fitted a repaired unit to my own car and will put some miles on it over the coming weeks and see how it performs; initially it appears to be successful. Although the primers and the rubber itself are quite expensive, one pack of the rubber solution has been sufficient to repair two units, if it gets two units working and therefore two cars back on the road it is not only a worthwhile expense but a good feeling to know we can repair obsolete parts. As a secondary side to all this, during my research into the rubber products available, the product I eventually settled on has many sides to it. It comes in three grades, hard medium and soft. Each grade can also be adjusted for elasticity with another additive. This means all sorts of components can be made subject to a mould and various allowances during mixing of the components. There is nothing to stop engine mountings being made now as well as a host of other parts. I do have rear wheel cylinder rubber gaiters in my mind now as these are long since unavailable, except for the one new one I have kept from many years ago with the thoughts of remaking in my mind for some years. Low cost Hydrolastic pumps I have been in touch with a company called A.A Mason, among other things, they make an affordable Hydrolastic suspension pump. With the old Churchill ones now making £250 in working order if you can find one, these ones are worth considering. From a personal point of view the low loss connector version makes the most sense. A nice peace of mind addition in your boot tool kit when you are going on long journeys too. Contact details as follows; Tony Mason 01453 548766, email [email protected] web www.aamason.com Here is an introduction from the manufacturers. A A Mason Ltd is a small engineering company who make many specialist vehicle tools, we realised the need to top-up Hydrolastic suspension systems and have developed a simple, cheap suspension pump for the home mechanic. From our small engineering workshop we make these pumps which are sold worldwide and this has lead to the production of a cheap low-loss connector allowing safe discharge of suspension fluids as well as monitoring of car suspension pressure via our pump. We have also developed an enhanced pump with our low-loss connector, a bleed/vacuum connection point, double check valves and a fluid chamber end cap. The enhanced pump allows the collection of released suspension fluids via its bleed port and the facility to connect an external hand operated vacuum pump so air can be removed from the car system prior to refilling and re-pressurisation. With the enhanced pump the car system pressure may be monitored during refilling or at other times without the risk of losing appreciable amounts of fluid from the car suspension system. We recommend the Mityvac hand operated vacuum pumps for the air removal task as these can subsequently used on a variety of other vehicle related tasks such as brake bleeding and maintenance of engine cooling systems. We provide an instruction sheet with both versions of our pumps, explaining the basic operation and giving hints on likely problems. We carry stocks of both versions of our pumps and also of our low-loss connector so despatch is usually possible within a day or two of receiving an order. We offer club members a special discounted price for our standard pump of £55.00 including first class UK postage and for the special enhanced version of the pump with its low-loss connector, £84.50 again including UK first class postage. The low-loss connector on its own is £29.50 including postage to the UK. For enquiries overseas please email or ring us for postage costs. Practical Classics Restoration Show It was a pleasant surprise to discover CGU 473H had made the final ten cars for the Practical Classics Restoration Show. A look at the calendar revealed the show was on days two and three of a pre-booked holiday in North Yorkshire! We had a family discussion and came up with a plan, we decided to try and attend the show without impacting too much on our holiday. The only way we felt this was achievable was to drop the car at the NEC on Friday the 11th, proceed onto our holiday destination in a hire car, and come back on Sunday 13th for day two of the show and to collect the 3-Litre. A phone call to Neil Campbell from Practical Classics was duly undertaken and Neil was very helpful and managed to accommodate our proposal. So off we went, it was a little unnerving leaving our pride and joy there and heading off! We got up at an unearthly hour on the Sunday morning and headed off on the 180 mile journey south to the NEC. We arrived at 10am and made a bee line for the car to ensure all was well, thankfully all was well and the car looked lovely sitting on the stand. The show was very busy indeed and I have to say had a great mix of things to see. The autojumble was a pleasing place with the majority of the stalls there having really helpful things to assist with a restoration. A refreshing change from the piles of rusty bits we see at many autojumbles. As can be seen from the picture below the variety of cars on display was very varied too! A rare and pleasing sight at the show was an 1800 “UTE” which was sitting on a vehicle lift on the Strongman Tools stand. A good excuse to take some photos of the underside. This lovely MG Metro was getting more attention than the Rolls Royce parked next to it! The Practical Classics Restorer of the year Stand The day went predictably quickly, at 4pm, the votes had been cast and it was time for the winner to be announced. Kevin Price with his Volvo “Saint car” was the winner and is seen here along with the rest of the finalists receiving his trophy from Vicky Butler-Henderson and Mike Brewer. And here is the winning car Well we flew the flag for our cars and the club, this was the first show of its kind and we were pleased to be there and showing a 3-litre. We may not have won but did get noticed; we had a great day out and showed an awful lot of people what an Austin 3-litre is. A lot of people who came over to chat had never seen one, those that had come across one before knew little of them, and more than one person was seen on all fours looking underneath the car in amazement at the rear wheel drive! On a personal front this was the first time I had exhibited a car of mine at a big event, and also the first time I had been to an indoor event. It was an interesting experience and at times a little trying; I was a bit surprised to see the cars were not fenced off from the visitors. More shocking was the number of people who felt it was ok to touch the cars; I even had one cheeky so and so open a door on mine and have a peek about inside! I didn’t expect that from “like minded folk” I must admit. That said no damage was done and the many fingerprints left behind were soon wiped away, with our keys collected there we were at 5.30pm just waiting for the doors of the NEC to be opened and away we go. The organisers were very efficient in getting us out and away from the venue; we literally drove out of the doors, onto the outer roads and onto the motorways with no waiting around at all. A Great show and a great day, a welcome addition to the show calendar, I am sure we will be back next year. Now for a bit of a journey! Our Daughter is 180 miles away dog sitting in our holiday cottage in North Yorkshire, so off we go on the journey back and to resume our holiday. Thankfully no issues with the car or otherwise were encountered on the way back, after a quick refuelling stop we did press on a bit on during this drive and exploited the “A to B” characteristics of a 3-litre somewhat. Twisty roads as we know are not much of an issue in a well sorted 3-litre, by the time we got to north Yorkshire the dark and twisty roads over the moors proved an easy challenge and we were safely back to our cottage at 9.20pm. A long a very pleasing day out and well worth the effort needed to attend the show. Holidaying in a Austin 3-litre Well the show story brings us nicely onto this story really, I have a modern company car and I do not have to pay for fuel for private use. Mainly for this reason the 3-litre is never normally considered for holidays these days, particularly one with lots of miles involved. We did however take the old dear on a lot of holidays in the 1980’s during our last ownership of her. She has been to places as spread out as Yorkshire, Cornwall and Guernsey in her active years as an everyday family car back in those days. Due to the restoration show we decided rather than come all the way back to Ipswich after the show was over, and then drive 300 miles North again, it would be better to use the car on holiday, after all that is she was built to do, so use her we did! We certainly gave her a good road test, we encountered one in three hills with hairpin bends in them, some of the “roads” over the moors were hardly deserving of the title. The picture below was taken just after we had encountered some hairpins on a one in three hill, this bit is about a one in four but the photo doesn’t do it justice at all. By the time we got to the bottom we had very hot smelly brakes indeed. Being an automatic car I did find going up one in three and four hills required a bit of thought, the torque converter does not let the engine rpm rise very much at road speeds this low. I soon got used to approaching the hills a little quicker where I could, and there was no real issues then, I did lock to gearbox in “low” a couple of times and let her go up at a leisurely 25mph in first gear which proved a good way to make progress. A manual car would make easier work of this I guess as having a lower first gear and the more flexible control of the engine rpm would be useful. That said we had no real issues with our progress. We had a very enjoyable week driving around “Heartbeat Country” and managed to photograph the car parked outside many of the places used in the making of the programme. Here she is parked outside Scripps garage on a lovely warm evening. It has to be said if it wasn’t for the Restoration Show we would not have taken the Austin. We are so glad we did take her though. The car was built to be a long distance comfortable cruiser and it was lovely to have used her for what she was meant to do, she did all that was asked of her with reasonable ease. The looks received from people as we drove along, and the conversations that came about whenever we parked up added another very pleasant twist to using a classic car. Inevitably given how hard were we pushing her at times, she used a bit of engine oil, about 7 pints altogether which may sound a lot by modern standards but I guess is about right for a 100,000 mile 45 year old engine which was at times working quite hard. I was surprised to find she used about 3 pints of transmission oil though, that said given the hills we were going up and down I suppose it has to be expected we used some transmission oil as the gearbox was working very hard indeed on some of the inclines. Overall the fuel consumption was quite good, it varied between 19mpg and 22mpg which was better than I had hoped for and had indeed budgeted for. I always use the expensive unleaded too as I find she doesn’t “pink” on that grade. We did pop in and see a man near Sheffield on the way home as I had arranged to buy and collect some spares; there were more spares than I thought so she was well loaded on the way home but took it all in her stride. These really are great cars for touring, a lovely 300 mile drive home and I just didn’t want to stop driving her. We covered 750 miles in 8 days and the Austin didn’t miss a beat. Classic motoring at its finest and some lovely memories, and we even had sunshine! It’s all about the ride – by Richard Fawthrop As we all know the 3 Litre is famous for its magic carpet ride, created by the sophisticated, self-levelling, Hydrolastic suspension system. For me, it’s probably the main reason why the car is so interesting. I had my first ride in a 3 Litre back in 1973. It was a company car and, as we drove along, I remember its allocated owner moaning, in predictable fashion, about how sluggish and old fashioned it was. I, by contrast, was utterly mesmerised by the luxury of the upholstery and by the silent and stately manner in which it moved along the carriageway. This is what I had in mind, when I bought YOH 431J in 2006. Driving back home with such dignity and poise, it really felt as though I had succeeded in recreating the experience I’d had as a boy. As the years went by, however, I began to notice that all was not well with my magic carpet. In the summer months I could hear an irritating squeak, which seem to be coming from the rear springs. In time it felt as though one of the rear displacers had completely seized up. The car began to pitch about in ungainly fashion and as I sat there, bouncing along on the tyres, it felt more like driving an old mini than a 3 Litre! Time to consult the Oracle! Neil has been living and breathing 3 Litres for the past twenty-odd years, so he, if anyone, would know what was wrong. I have to say I feared the worst. What if I needed a new displacer or some other obsolete part? Pictured here is YOH 431J and CGU473H outside Neil’s residence. When I explained the problem, Neil knew straight away what it was – seized radius arm bushes! What’s more, he had recently arranged for this very part to be re-manufactured! I couldn’t believe my luck and I immediately ordered a set, comprising four split metal rings, lined with the very toughest ‘DX’ yellow plastic – exactly the same as the original! All I needed now was someone to take on the job of fitting them and I so popped the car down to Nick at my local garage, handed him the workshop manual and hoped for the best. Nick is always very helpful but, on this occasion, he seemed more than a little hesitant at the prospect of completely dismantling the rear suspension of a 43 year old car! I could almost hear the relief in his voice when, having de-pressurized the Hydrolastic system, he called me a few hours later to inform me that the rear suspension arms were not seized after all! He suggested that we should simply change the two big Hydrolastic cylinders underneath the back of the car, flush out the system and re-fill with new Hydrolastic fluid. So that’s what we did – and it didn’t work! Neil Gets Stuck in! When I related this to Neil he was quick to point out why. The radius arms operate under great loading. With the car jacked up and the rear wheels hanging down there would be negligible loading on the old bushes and so the suspension arms would move up and down freely, giving the impression that the bushes are not seized at all. He said that he could guarantee that the ‘DX’ plastic on the old bushes would have completely worn away and that what was left of the old lubricating grease would be like thick glue! I think Neil could see that I was in a desperate spot. Despite his busy schedule, he kindly agreed to step in and do the job for me. What a difference it makes when someone knows exactly what they’re doing! So That’s what a rear displacer looks like! Depressurize the Hydrolastic system. Remove the rear silencer and detach the differential to reveal the rear displacers. With these lowered, you can get at the radius arm levers – short, stubby things which point down almost vertically and press against one end of the displacers. The housing containing the radius arm bush Incredible, how, after all these years, all the bolts turn without difficulty. Now open up the housing and the radius arm bushes become visible. Amazing! Neil’s prediction of what they would look like is 100% correct! We’re on the home straight now! Knock out the old bushes and tap in the new ones. Smear with high quality grease. All that’s left to do now is to reassemble everything and pump up the suspension. New DX Radius arm bushes. Tapping in the new Bush And then the moment of truth! A quick bounce up and down on the boot lip reveals a huge difference in the displacement of the rear end of the car – now it moves up and down by as much as 5 inches! The test drive confirms that the operation has been a complete success. I’m sure you can imagine the big smile on my face as I float all the way down the A12 back to London, my magic carpet ride now fully restored. In my opinion, we’re all very lucky to have Neil as our Club leader. Thank you Neil! Without doubt, you are the Man with the Knowledge! Richard Fawthrop (Kind words, thanks Richard, I was glad to be of help, nice we fixed the self levelling too, Neil) Out and about July 6th BMC and Leyland Show Heritage Centre Gaydon, Celebrate a host of British vehicles, manufactured by BMC, British Leyland and Rover. Also celebrating 30 years of the Montego. For more information here is a link to their website. http://www.heritage-motor-centre.co.uk/ To download a 2014 events guide for the heritage centre click on this link. http://www.heritage-motor-centre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Events-Calendar2014.pdf August 2nd Austin’s at the Ace 6.00pm to 11.00pm. The first event of its kind at this location, inspired by an idea from within the club. To see what the Ace has to offer please follow the link. http://www.ace-cafe-london.com/default.aspx Hope to see you there! August 3rd BMC Day Ferry Meadows Park Nr Peterborough. Annual event celebrating all things BMC. The 3-litre owners club have a stand space booked. The website for the event is not very user friendly but here is a link anyway. http://www.bmcblrally.co.uk/1.html Odds and Ends Classics in London Transport for London is trying to implement an Ultra Low Emission Zone in central London. This would prohibit the use of any non compliant vehicles within the zone, diesel vehicles will have to be Euro 6 compliant. (cars registered new from 2014) And petrol vehicles will have to be Euro 4 compliant. (Cars registered new from 2005) The original ruling was a block ruling on all vehicles. TFL have now seen sense and given dispensation for classic vehicles. If this dispensation had not been given the London to Brighton run and the Regents Street Motor Show would have been under threat as well as many business’s who rely on the classic vehicle industry. Of course many thousands of car owning London residents are still facing a rather trying time and possibly a change of car to comply with the new ruling. It seems a little crazy that I will be able to drive my 45 year old Austin into the city but not my 8 month old Ford! Tax discs The good old tax disc was introduced in the UK in 1921 so it is something we have all always had to have to drive our cars legally, the Government have decided that due to the electronic systems now being used it will no longer be required to display a tax disc in your windscreen from the end of October 2014. You still have to apply on tax exempt vehicles and pay for chargeable vehicles of course. Another change to the taxation of vehicles is that the rolling tax exemption is to be re-introduced, vehicles will be eligible once they reach 40 years old but the exemption is not automatic, you will have to apply and have your taxation class changed. All 3-litres are tax exempt in the UK as we know. Spares News Bottom Hoses are now available again I last had these remade in 1995! As these rarely come up as a new old stock part, and, I guess in desperation, when they do appear they are normally bought for more than their real worth. I think the time is right to get them remade again. have received the first hose back and it is perfect. The minimum order was 20 hoses, less than that I have to pay a tooling cost which is wavered at 20 hoses. The hoses will be available by the end of May. I still have good stocks of top hoses which have been stored in the dark so they will be fine. I can get these remade too when we need to. Next newsletter end of July 2014